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it's official  apple has released the long-awaited, much-speculated-upon os x 10.4 tiger operating system, an upgrade to the current os x, complete with a smattering of bells and whistles.

frank casanova, senior director of mac os x audio/video, gave a complete rundown of the new features tiger will bring to current (and future) mac users.

"it will change the way you use your computer," casanova said.

apple says the new os will sport over 200 features, some packing more of a punch than others, but all designed to make the interface as user-friendly as possible.

the spotlight feature has been generating the most buzz, which will work much like google desktop search, but will be integrated directly into the operating system. and unlike most other searches, where the user enters a word, hits search and the computer spits out the results, spotlight will start searching as characters are entered into the box. and, unlike current searches that look for file and folder names, spotlight comprehensively searches files, folders, e-mail, pdf documents, address book and calendar entries for the characters typed into the box.

spotlight searches performed with regularity can be saved as a "smart folder," an auto-updated folder that holds files with certain criteria attached.

casanova then explained how he could easily set up a smart folder by performing a spotlight search for all movies, adding them to one of the special folders. then, anytime another movie enters the system, whether burnt from a disk, received through e-mail or downloaded from the internet, it will be copied to that smart folder automatically.